There are two gubernatorial races going on right now in the state of Virginia. There is the real one in which Republican Bob McDonnell is running a disciplined, issue-filled campaign against once-promising Democrat Creigh Deeds, who is running a Seinfeld-like campaign about nothing. And there is the campaign going on in the pages of the Washington Post, whose endorsement of Deeds helped vault him over better-known challengers in the primary. The two have nothing to do with one another, one more piece of evidence that the last place you should look to find out what is going on is the mainstream media.

The Post of course has declared the top issue to be a 20-year-old college thesis by McDonnell in which he expressed all sorts of highly out of fashion views on topics such as gays and working women. The Post then proceeded over a two-week span to milk the story, reciting and re-circulating the claims. When it was forced to report the real campaign, it cast McDonnell’s focus on bread and butter issues as an effort to get away from the “real” issue — the Post’s fixation with the thesis. The Weekly Standard’s parody mocking the Post’s thesis fetish blurred the line between fact and fiction when the very next day after running a mock-up of the Post (“Post Runs Another Story About Its McDonnell Story”), the actual Post ran a story headlined: “McDonnell Changes Topic Amid Thesis Issue.” How dare he!

Never mind that McDonnell — the state’s former attorney general — premised his campaign on inclusion, pragmatism, and competence, not social issues. Or that he spent 14 years compiling a record in the state’s House of Delegates. Or that the suburban Northern Virginia native offers detailed solutions to front-porch concerns such as improving schools, reducing traffic congestion, and bringing jobs to the state. Deeds might not catch up on those issues. So a caricature that sends shivers through minivan-driving suburban swing voters is just what is needed. Paint McDonnell as a right-wing, anti-abortion, Bible-thumper. And call on the Post — always a reliable ally of Virginia Democrats — to provide the bullets for political character assassination.

Following the Post’s campaign direction, Deeds began to raise the issue and run ads on the invented “issue” – which the Post dutifully reported on. Ah, further evidence that the campaign is now about McDonnell’s term paper and not his public record or his opponent’s. Except for the scant evidence that voters cared about the issue, the Post might have had a point.

But out on the campaign trail the issue didn’t seem to come up much at all and a poll showed McDonnell stretching his lead to 12 points. The Wall Street Journal observed:

Mr. Deeds hasn’t had an easy road. He had to pull off a come-from-behind win in the primary and bring in more experienced campaign staff. And he continues to struggle to present a defining issue that resonates broadly with voters — this week, his message seemed to be education overhaul. The lack of a clear image has left him vulnerable to Mr. McDonnell’s accusation that he is in lockstep with Mr. Obama and congressional Democrats.

Mr. Deeds faces another obstacle: history. In every Virginia gubernatorial election since 1977, the party that won the presidency the previous year went on to lose the governor’s race.

“Voters in Virginia tend to take on the mission of the founding fathers, who believed in balance. Apparently this thing has become an iron law. It’s just fascinating,” said political science Prof. Larry J. Sabato at the University of Virginia. “It really does give McDonnell a major boost. While this thesis controversy helps Deeds, that can’t counteract this movement away from Obama.”

But what about that thesis? Well, the Journal agreed it hadn’t made much of an impact.

It is quite a role reversal from the campaign of 2005, in which Republican Jerry Kilgore ran a campaign strangely devoid of any issue which the voters cared about. The death penalty and illegal immigration absorbed his time, about which the mainstream tut-tutted in disapproval, while now Governor Tim Kaine talked about jobs, schools, and transportation — exactly as McDonnell is doing this time around.

Deeds has yet to come up with a defining issue. He instead has been battered by McDonnell, who has sought to corner Deeds on whether he agrees with the Democrats’ left-leaning national agenda on issues including card check, cap-and-trade, and government-centric health care reform which moderate and conservative Virginia voters view with increasing suspicion. Deeds is hoping of course that the Post, as it did with incessant coverage of Sen. George Allen’s infamous “macaca” comment in 2006, can convert this into a race about his opponent’s “scary” views and about social issues that will turn off voters in voter-rich Northern Virginia, where the hometown paper for most voters is none other than the Post.

But the Post may have its work cut out. In the upcoming debates McDonnell, a mild-mannered, detail-oriented lawyer with a wonkish array of policy positions, will be on the stage, not the caricature created by the Post. Voters may have a hard time believing that this McDonnell is the same person targeted by the Post.

And of course, he’s not. The real McDonnell has professional daughters, a record of pushing through bi-partisan legislation and a powerful argument that Virginians can play a role in pushing back on the Democrats’ leftward lurch in Washington. And that tells you why the Post has invented an entirely different McDonnell to cover.

Do we truly believe that they represent the “mainstream” of American thought, dialogue, accuracy, …are they THAT representative of the “main stream” of American conscience?

Because, if they are not…we are doing ourselves a monumental disservice by promoting them as our voice and merely clucking when “there they go again, those silly rascals”…telling half-truths, propagandizing, faking photos, forging documents, making up stories out of whole cloth and refusing entirely to report on other stories.

Is this who we are as a nation? Lies told by omission, commission and by halves as well as not by halves…is merely an “irritant” to us?

Have we become that calloused and shallow that we really believe that our NEWS organizations becoming a de facto apparatus for one political party is merely just proof of bias?

It is the wholesale prostitution of our information stream…the stream that really matters…and when our VOTES are pre-masticated in the germ filled infestation of the entrenched media’s mouth…when thousands of minds are moved not by truth and facts, but by intentional lies…we get a government that represents those lies. It must, because if it turned its back on the lies…it would cease to exist.

In a fair society, minds are changed based on facts, evidence, truth…and THEN opinion. In a rigged game, the facts, truth and evidence don’t matter.

Cheating the truth, disguising the facts, rigging the evidence…is akin to jury tampering. It’s fraud…and by any other name stinks as badly. And any case won by such methods is a nullity.

If that represents the “mainstream” of your thought…then abide by your own honor and dignity.

For me…calling these liars the “mainstream” of my thought is an affront to all that I stand for and against. Sorry, not for me. Not for the country I grew up defending and still believe in with all my heart and soul. Nope, not today. Not ever.

Yeah, it really sucks when your political opponent reaches way back into your past to find something embarassing that you had moved past/disavowed long ago, and uses that embarassing item to smear you, isn’t it?

Well, the GOP did the same thing to Van Jones (oh no he got arrested for protesting!), President Barack Obama (oh no he was on a board of directors with Bill Ayers!) and First Lady Michelle Obama (oh no she wrote a controversial essay in college!)

You lousy hypocrites don’t have a leg to stand on. You throw every dirty Rovian smear at your opponents, and then whine like babies when the same tactics are used aginst you. I hope Dees exposes every single skeleton in McDonnell’s closet. It’s the very least the GOP deserves for the last 30 years of Nixonian no-holds-barred politics.

Bob McDonnell’s goose might have been cooked just a few years ago. The pro-abortion yuppies would have looked for any excuse to support his Democratic Party opponent. This year these same individuals will be voting their pocketbook issues—and not their cultural war concerns! McDonald should easily win by minimally a six point margin. Creigh Deeds is doomed by Barack Obama’s radical economic doctrines. He simply cannot sufficiently distance himself from the president.

I “love” the hypocrisy of the Washington Post and left wingers like Dale.

They care a lot about McDonnell’s 20 year old thesis, but geez where were they on Obama’s thesis? Oh wait…they didn’t care that he hasn’t released his undergrad or graduate grades, they don’t care that he hasn’t released his graduate thesis.

Dale, before you call anyone a hypocrite please make sure you look in the mirror!

Don’t forget that it has been Liberals like you who have said that Obama’s assocations from the past do not matter, it was Liberals like you who said Kerry’s C average grades did not matter. But I guess now that it helps your cause they matter, eh?

Has McConnell explained his intellectual evolution, or has he simply said, “I don’t think that anymore”? I find those ideas stupid, odious, and offensive, and I want HIM to tell me what precisely is wrong with them.

You are right Dale, the “nut wing” reached all the way back to April 2009 to dig up some dirt on Van Jones, former Obama “green czar”. That’s almost six months ago. That’s almost one half of a year, close to 180 days.

Really Dale, you’re defending Van Jones? As John Edwards said, “There are two Americas”, the one I want to live in and the one you want to live in Dale.

You are kidding, of course…but I think the problem stems from the following things:

1) Inertia:

We have gotten comfortable utilizing the words, phrases and taglines of those who intend to imprint the “message” and its outcome, on our national conscience.

Once it becomes part of the American “habit” to call the charlatans “Doctor”, it imbues them with a mantle of respect and expertise and authority that they would otherwise not obtain.

2)Fighting “pop culture” on three flanks. Non-leftists have been outmaneuvered. Leftist’s fellow travelers not only grabbed ALL the vehicles that formulate public opinion…they effectively built barriers to entry for anyone who is NOT a fellow traveler. (Hollywood, virtually ALL the entrenched media outlets, academia).

Now…trying to get even a reasoned, rational, calm, and well articulated opposing opinion into the “mainstream” for review, testing and commentary…is an uphill climb…every time.

The stranglehold on the voice of each and every other point of view, is suffocating and relentless.

3)Moreover, the leftists have become so enamored with this absolute power, that they get testy when ANYONE…including the voting public…challenges ANYTHING they put forward.

To put it bluntly, they have gotten away with it for so long, it seems that now… they… believe their own BS.

4)The entrenched media have been willing co-conspirators in establishing LeftSpeak, a sort of language in which every opposing voice is not only strangled, but also demonized. Where the very same acts from a leftist, is covered up…or has a pathway littered with rose petals. Where up is down, wrong is right, hate is love, treason is patriotism.

And those voices who still dare to oppose…are left to alternative means, underground communications and risk the swirling winds of rage from the information stream thugs and thieves.

Do we need to agree on a name for them? I could not be more sure of anything. Very Entrenched Revisionist Media Insider Network? Works for me.

Rush suggested today that the organizers of Freedom Works go after the leftstream media next by protesting at their headquarters, and see if they will report on it. A good start would be the NYT, WAPO, GE/NBC, CBS and ABC. This is the “you all voted for me” media, as Obama stated, that has no business being called mainstream.

And after you are finished there, go after the smug leftist in Hollywood, where you know the type, the wannabe ‘Che’s’ living in a 10,000 sq. ft mansion in Beverly Hills, while bashing capitalism. It is time to demand they move into a soviet style apartment, and give up all their wealth. This may sound harsh, but there is nothing more rewarding than embarrassing a marxist living the life of a capitalist.

As the MSM crashes, the Washington Post still tries to be the Left’s cheerleader among many others of those crashing to bits; however, this witch hunt by the Post is the typical double standard under the guise of “journalism.” The Post is pathetic in its own obvious bias without the salons to the Obama corruption. The Washington Post–like its shrinking liberal MSM–is equally corrupt. Corrupt birds of a feather make wonderful tasting fried chicken. All that’s needed is a little flour, baking oil, salt & pepper, & time. The fried chicken legs have come home to roost.

The WaPo will unleash the dogs of hell in its effort to sandbag McDonnell between now and election day. Apparently they couldn’t stir up rank hatred against the man by writing several stories (and a few editorials) against him. Why weren’t they that diligent in digging up dirt, er, information on Obama’s college education, his writings and his grades? Anyone? They did the same thing to George Allan – knocking him out of the Senate race by continually harping on his macacca moment. They were able to create something out of nothing – and it worked. Maybe the voters have wisened upa little. Maybe now see that the Post, in all its faded glory, is nothing more than a left wing propaganda organ.

Bernie Goldberg suggested tonight that we need to stop referring to the legacy media as being mainstream. This is a ploy used be the left that has worked to their advantage for several decades. I can recall Ted Kennedy consistently using the term related to judicial appointments, as if liberal is mainstream, and conservative is out of the mainstream.

I am hoping the N. Va residence will not fall for this again, but most are gov’t employees and it probably doesn’t matter.

I read in several spots on the web that the WaPo is losing a buck ten a copy. Here is what I don’t understand: what is up with the stockholders? Why are they not at the WaPo offices with tar and feathers and good hemp rope?

I am not a great, internationally known financial guru but I’m pretty sure that people buy stock to hold money and make a profit. Every “news” organisation but Fox is shedding readers and viewers, why do the stockholders put up with it?

“Voters in Virginia tend to take on the mission of the founding fathers, who believed in balance.
Apparently this thing has become an iron law. It’s just fascinating,”
said political science Prof. Larry J. Sabato at the University of Virginia.

Notice that the libtard political Prof. can not understand how Virginia voters could be stuck on stupid, (“It’s just fascinating,”) he says.

He probably had several years of indoctrination for the little conservative peasants minds that will now have to be re-written, re-thought and ‘made up’ but he will work hard to earn his $250,000 dollars from academia.

I’m sure he thinks football coaches make way too much money for no more work than they do.

#11 arhooley: “Has McConnell explained his intellectual evolution…..?” Regardless of all the “kill the messenger” rhetoric, or attempts to focus as usual on Obama or Van Jones, that’s the key question here. I thought McConnell’s comments were, and are, offensive. I would never expect to hear such comments from true conservative icons like Goldwater, Reagan, or William F. Buckley.

While I agree that Deeds’s campaign is totally desultory and message-less so far and that the Post is probably running with this story to help their own favored candidate, this Pajamas story is not particularly honest either. To characterize McDonnell’s graduate thesis that he wrote as a 35-year-old seeking a second graduate degree as a “college thesis” is disingenuous at best. And the fact that the thesis in question was a 93-page document that outlined his public POLICY viewpoints means to this Virginia voter that it is indeed germane to the dialogue. The thesis, after all, was all about governmental action in the face of the crisis of values that McDonnell saw. The views expressed by McDonnell in that thesis are going to be hard for him to deal with if the Deeds campaign ever gets its act straight.

Hooray for WaPo.It moves more voters to McDonnell with each new slam against him. The “news” paper’s campaign, together with Obama’s consistent stumbling of late, will make the election a cakewalk for the GOP. YES!

I watched Deeds in an add last night tell us he was going to fix education. He didn’t say how, just said he would. If it wasn’t for the Sunday coupons the WAPO and B0more Sun would be under in a year. In fact if I could get the coupons with out the paper I would. People are sick of the media insulting our intelligence and treating us as if we are stupid, as evident in their plummeting readers and viewers. I really wish news was “Just the facts ma’am.” instead of ” This is what we want you to know.”

I am a resident of Southside Virginia and can tell you that the Washington Post isn’t well respected here and the articles are seen as another reason to vote for McDonnell and against Deeds.
Most people here would really like to see a true independent candidate run.